Captain Bungle's Odyssey

Book excerpt: Paddy Macklin, a self-taught sailor, decided to sail around the world in the smallest boat possible, single-handed, and hopefully, without stopping. He survived, sailing the Southern Oceans in winter and rounding both southernmost capes in the world, but by the skin of his teeth. His extraordinary little craft, "Tessa" was knocked down several times in the Southern Ocean and completely rolled twice. "In the space of about 40 seconds I was thrown out of my bunk onto the ceiling (deckhead) then back to my bunk again...throughout the time I spent upside down, the most noticeable thing was the complete silence". It was the damage done by these two 360 degree knockdowns that forced Paddy and Tessa to break their journey in New Zealand, pulling into Timaru where sailing friends towed them into port, and helped piece together the shattered sailor and his little craft. As Paddy noted, "It's not the huge seas that damage a strong, well-found yacht; it's the breaking tops of the seas - several tons of very fast-moving water - that present the greatest danger. Throughout his sojourn, Paddy was able to communicate twice a week with family back in England and this has been diarised and interspersed with the Captain's log thus giving a more personal insight into the character of Tessa's captain, how terrorised he was by the gigantic seas, how pleased he was to make friends with dolphins, birds, and whales, how wonderful it was to sight land, and how he managed to remain sane during an odyssey that few of us would ever dream of undertaking. It's a brave - or perhaps mad - person who would pit his strength against the might of nature. Paddy is one of the few.